Seton Hall University exhibits Nazi-era war era documents

AREA -- Seton Hall University will exhibit a collection of World War II-era mail and documents that relate to the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews.

The collection is in the Beck Rooms of the Walsh Library, Sunday, Dec. 14, from 1 to 4 p.m. A reception will follow for all guests. There is no charge. For information, call 973-761-9006.

The collection is owned by the Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation, which acquired this collection to preserve and offer it for public use at Holocaust and genocide educational venues around the world. The display at Seton Hall, hosted by The Sister Rose Thering Endowment for Jewish-Christian Studies, will be the second public exhibit since the acquisition of the historic items from a private collector.

The Foundation's Daniel Spungen says that, "One of the most heartbreaking artifacts and historical evidence of Nazi desecration is a torn fragment of a hand-written Hebrew parchment from a Bible scroll. A German soldier used the holy scripture to wrap a parcel he mailed from Russia to Austria in 1942. The sacred parchment was pillaged from a Russian synagogue. Ironically, the portion used was the story of David and Goliath."

The foundation now will be the guardian of more than 250 envelopes, post cards, letters, special postage stamps used exclusively by concentration camp inmates, Jewish ghetto residents and prisoners of war. Other notable pieces in the collection include a[?] card sent by an inmate at Dachau soon after it opened in 1933, It is the earliest known prisoner mail from any Nazi concentration camp.

Also, from Oct. 3, 1943, a letter to his parents in Rzeszow, Poland from Eduard Pys, a 21-year-old who arrived on the first transport at the Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1940; as well as mail secretly carried by children through the sewers of Warsaw during the 1944 uprising.

The Endowment was created and named in honor of Sister Rose Thering, O.P., Ph.D., in recognition and appreciation of her dedication during her life to improve Jewish-Christian relations through education, especially at the elementary and secondary school levels.
Seton Hall is a Catholic university that embraces students of all races and religions. Visit www.shu.edu.